Is there still a need for 3rd party SEO extensions with the new Joomla 2.5?

Question

In Joomla 2.5 they upgraded the core SEO.

That got me to thinking, do I still need to use third party extensions for my SEO? If yes, why? What is it that 3rd party extensions provide that Joomla 2.5's built-in SEO doesn't?

Answer 1

The biggest reason why using an SEO component in all versions of Joomla even 3+ is that Joomla has a habit of creating multiple urls for one page/post meaning that Google finds these as duplicates.

There are just so many reasons why using a SEO extensions for Joomla is better than using the core but here's a few:

• Better REL="Canonical" Support
• Better at handling friendly urls with scanning for duplicate pages
• Scans Meta/Title for Duplicates
• Handles redirects a 100x better than core
• Easier to manage the meta data within one page (see all when viewing all)
• Easier add Google plus and other social networking attributes to the head.
• The list goes on and on.

I suggest you check out two of the most popular extensions for Joomla: AceSEF and SH404SEF

I've personally used both and SH404SEF offers the most to be honest but AceSEF has a free version and does the job just fine.